


Dreams of Gadgets and Wires

by Suzume



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Backstory, Community: 31_days, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-21
Updated: 2006-11-21
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:30:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Technical things had always brought Reeve joy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams of Gadgets and Wires

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 31_days theme for Nov. 21, 2006 - "On the path of dreams"
> 
> Probably not quite a match to Reeve's canon backstory, but I still think about this one all this time later (2015!), so I figured I should post it here anyway.

 

       Technical things had always brought him joy, ever since he was a child. For his birthday, his father had always bought him kits to put assemble: model airships, trains, and robots. They had worked on them together, Reeve listening carefully to his father's advice about the best way to use the tools, how to paste the pieces together so the joints wouldn't show, and where to hide a mechanical spider, wound up ready to jump, so it would give his mother the biggest fright.

       His father was not rich, but he was wise. He knew where the power resided in Midgar and he worked his hardest to get himself noticed by the Shinra Corporation. He had hoped for a better life for his son and he knew that as long as they lived in Midgar, there was only one way to get it. He was hired to wash the windows of the Shinra building. It was a dangerous job. He came home exhausted and shaking with fear after a long day, but he spoke very little about his occupation or what he saw while working. He drank tea to calm his nerves and steady his shaking hands as he joined Reeve on a small electronics project.

       Reeve gradually grew in skill and began to modify the kits to his liking, mixing different parts together to make first mysterious devices with no real function and later careful clockwork reconstructions of the living things around him. His mother's favorite was a delicate metal butterfly he clipped onto her mirror. It moved its wings slowly and gently as though it were alive. Reeve found it to be a bit clunky. The motion was correct, but it just didn't look like a butterfly. It was thick and silver, not paper thin and colorful. To recreate life as accurately as possible...that was what he yearned to make most...

       During the summer, when he was out of school, Reeve accompanied his father to work and helped out a bit. He found he was not afraid of the great heights they reached, just reasonably cautious. Squinting through the shining glass, he could catch sight of executives in meetings, scientists testing experiments, and the worker bees buzzing about taking care of the daily business of the company. His father wiped down the windows and they chatted amicably about various things. It was his father who suggested Cait Sith. Reeve had thought he would be a realistic cat, but his father had other thoughts. Wouldn't it better to create something that could not be than something that already was? Together they drew the sketches of a black and white cat with a cape. His father spoke about it so cheerfully that Cait Sith became Reeve's dream project.

       The year he was hired by Shinra was the year his father fell. During a wet October, he slipped and one cord loosely knotted led to horrific death. Reeve was devastated. His mother was depressed. It was almost enough to make him stop tinkering. Without his father to show the marvelous toys to, what was the point? He visited the church in the slums and prayed on it. Ending the mechanical work would be a betrayal. He had to be strong. He had to make his greatest puppet yet, his magnum opus: Cait Sith.

       And so he fell to working into the wee hours of the night because his days were filled with work for the corporation. He coaxed a small smile or two out of his mother by pulling her into the project to sew a little cape and shoes for the cat. "Your father would've loved this," she sighed regretfully as the final external touches were put on Cait Sith. They both stood back and stared at the funny little creation on the worktable.

       "Reeve, you said he was ready, right? Are you going to turn him on?" Her curiosity was obvious in her dark eyes.

       The young man smiled and lifted a modified pair of goggles from the table. He put them on and adjusted a few switches. He could see through the cat doll. It was odd to be looking out at his mother and himself. He pulled the operating remote out of his back pocket and hit a button. Cait Sith jumped up and looked at them with delight. Reeve's mother clapped her hands. "He's so cute!"

       "Who's this pretty lady?" Reeve spoke into the tiny microphone on his headgear and the silly sounded voice came forth from the mouth of the toy cat.

       His mother laughed and tears began to well up in the corners of her eyes, "Cait Sith... Oh Reeve, that's something he would've said..."

       "I know, I know," he sighed.

       Reeve had thought this would be his last dabbling in the world of mechanics and gadgets, but it turned out that Cait Sith #1 was only the beginning...

 


End file.
